[openbeos] Re: Do we want to recreate SoftwareValet/PackageBuilder?

Hi Ryan,

"Ryan Leavengood" <leavengood@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> First: I've read through the archives and I see there was an 
> extensive
> discussion over installers in Dec 2001 and Jan 2002. I do not want to
> re-hash that discussion.
> 
> I was just wondering if there was any interest in reverse engineering
> the pkg format and recreating SoftwareValet and PackageBuilder 
> exactly
> as they are now.

I don't think there is any urgent need for a PackageBuilder 
replacement, but it would certainly be great to have an application 
that can install packages (but please not the rest of that ugly 
SoftwareValet :-)).
I would also not recreate them "exactly as they are" as there are quite 
some annoying features in their interface we shouldn't copy.

> I used PackageBuilder last night for the first time to create the
> Microsoft Font Installer (http://www.bebits.com/app/4331) and it took
> me about 15 minutes. The installer package worked perfectly the first
> time. So I think it is a pretty slick app. Of course last week I was
> battling with the NSIS installer on Windows writing its weird
> PHP/Assembly script language combo, so maybe I'm an unusual case.
> 
> I'm willing to do the work on this, but maybe you guys think effort
> needs to go other places...

It's a nice little app, yes, but it's still there for us to use. I 
think we'll want something a bit more capable than this, though, at 
least in the long term (not in the R1 range, unfortunately, I guess). 
OTOH having a decent frame that could be used for that wouldn't be too 
bad either, and a nice addition to our developer tools as well.
Hey, as you can see, I'm a bit undecisive about this - maybe someone 
else has better arguments and a clear vision about this ;-)

Bye,
   Axel.

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